Free To Choose Network

What does a society lose when people are denied the freedom to choose their own work and the chance to innovate? Lou and Phil point to escaped slaves who arrived in the North with nothing and built successful enterprises, a real-world measure of the talent slavery held back.

Hear the full episode of Happy Hour Econ with Lou and Phil on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. https://happyhourecon.org/episodes/the-history-and-costs-of-slavery-in-america/

If your town doesn't need to make everything it uses, why should your country?

Perspectives Matter host Dennis McCuistion asks author Matt Ridley, whether trade between nations works the same way as trade between neighbors. Ridley says it does, using the example of Britain buying combine harvesters it doesn't make by selling goods it does. He then explains David Ricardo's idea of comparative advantage: even if one country is better at producing everything, both sides still gain when each focuses on what it does best and trades for the rest.

Watch the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OttUifMaCxo&list=PLG2LEPerJ4Dc

Clear rules. Fair enforcement. Real growth.

In Botswana, Henrik Ekelund explains how the rule of law and strong property rights give people the confidence to build for the future.

Why Nations Prosper comes to public television and YouTube on November 1.

See the trailer: https://www.freetochoosenetwork.org/programs/why_nations_prosper/

Any statistic that makes the antebellum South look wealthy starts by treating enslaved people as property.

On paper, a plantation owner holding a thousand people looked rich. Counted as people, those thousand were living in extreme poverty with no control over their own work, and the South's per capita wealth shifts dramatically.

Lou and Phil on why a true accounting of slavery tells a very different economic story.

The full episode of Happy Hour Econ is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. https://happyhourecon.org/episodes/the-history-and-costs-of-slavery-in-america/

Would you want to live to 200?

In this conversation for Perspectives Matter, host Dennis McCuistion speaks with biologist and science writer Matt Ridley about the limits of human longevity. Ridley explains why so few people live past 110, why the very old tend to die of a quiet decline rather than cancer or heart disease, and why he doubts that limit can be changed late in life. He also makes the case that a 200-year lifespan would mean starting over completely, with a new education and a second career.

Watch the full interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAPM5-YKCdE&list=PLG2LEPerJ4Dc&index=2

Why do medical costs rise? Milton Friedman argues that hospitals and physicians may be inefficient and greedy, but they always have been. The bigger driver is consumers pressing for expanded services and more variety.

Milton Friedman didn't mince words: he called the FDA an unmitigated disaster.

Yes, it has stopped some bad drugs. But it has also stopped very good drugs from coming on the market. It has made new drugs enormously more expensive to discover and develop. And it has driven medical research out of the country.

In Friedman's view, the harm far outweighs the good.

Critics of capitalism rarely stop to define it. Lou and Phil do. Private property and voluntary exchange are the starting points, but the system also depends on people owning their own work, with the freedom to trade what they produce, leave a job, and try something new.

Last call for this week's full episode of Happy Hour Econ with Lou and Phil, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. https://happyhourecon.org/episodes/slavery-capitalism-and-the-historical-record/